I agree with this proposal, however to make basketball more popular in Australia Asian players and southern hemisphere players should not be considered imports.

I think as it stands the salary cap in the chinese league is already over US$1 million.

Japan, Lebanon, Iran, China, Sth Korea, Phillipines would be teams with at least a few players from each of these countries able to compete at NBL level, but perhaps not dominate which is why the import restrictions should be removed. I know tonnes of Filipino guys who are nuts about bball but have been to less than a handful of NBL games.

The same goes for Argentina, Brazil, Angola etc as southern hemisphere teams.

I don't think teams should play in China mid season, i'd prefer 12 Australian teams and 4 in Southern Asia (Taipei, Jakarta, Guam - US governed, Jakarta, Manilla, Singapore etc could be options). To avoid high travel costs I think the Australian teams should be divided into 3 divisions: QLD (3 current teams and Brisbane), Southern (Perth, Adelaide, 2 Melbourne teams) and East Coast (Sydney Kings, Wollongong, AIS, NZ or whatever).

Each team would play each other 3 times in their division and one home and one away game against every other team. That makes 33 games. The top 2 teams could advance from each group - creating a more intense regional rivalry.

I also reckon an AIS team with 10 players under 23 and two over 23 would be good based out of canberra. As soon as players are older they could get courted by NBL clubs. This also builds a good base for future national teams and players looking at NBA as the AIS is as highly renowned for producing talent as some of the top US colleges now.

(Does anyone think the nbl or BA reads these posts?)

from my proposal, all travel costs would be be cobvered by arline sponsors.

top 2 make finals from each conference with the next best 2 also progressing, afl style finals format witth best of 3 for each matchup.

Is this someone's idea or something seriously considered by BA ?

One of the reform recommendations was for BA to work with FIBA on the establishment of a FIBA Asia Champions league which includes some Australian teams.

Something like that would be some time off though.

For a bundle of reasons this is unrealistic - as in "tell him he's dreaming" unrealistic.

Asia is neither interested enough or strong enough to warrant this. As I've said here before only China then daylight then Korea/Japan are of any value in the basketball sense given structure, organisation, development etc etc. The other strong nations in Asia are Iran and Lebanon and they are in a part of Asia no one wants to travel to.

The travel burden would be horrendous, Singapore is 7 hours from east coast australia, but when you get to china/bangkok/india etc etc you are much closer to 10 - 12 hours minimum and that is provided you do not need to transit anywhere which you normally would.

The fact is these places are a long-long way away. No league in the world in any sport travels like this as a home and away league. (and no ...the ACL is not a home away league, it plays in pools etc)

You might recall a spat in the papers recently involving newcastle's a-league side and their nasty travel schedule for an Asian champion league game which involved just the issues i am raising here again - travel and transit).

God, the NBL struggles with travel schedules... imagine Tianjin having to get to Townsville ... best case is Tianjin to Hong Kong, HK to Syd or Bris, then to townsville... probably 20 hours in travel and transit. Now think what happens when they need to get to Wellington which is not even NZ's main travel hub and has far less flights than an airport like Brisbane or Adelaide!

No airline, given their plight, is going to give you upwards of 3-4 million worth of travel to sustain this sort of competition, and no airline has the reach to sustain this anyway, so already the deal is broken down to a gonglomerate of partners which weakens the offering etc etc.

Finally, most of these nations just do not care. China are interested in Australian basketball, but only because we provide excellent INTERNATIONAL competition. China have already had a team compete in the American ABA - they just have no need to be part of a market like Oceania/SE Asia.

Your best hope, and a sensible solution is a champions league type proposal initally involving korea, China, Japan and AUS. I would not even include NZ in that.

Asia will not be basketball's saviour in this country, at least not in the next 20 years.

some serious issues raised there. smart.


btw whats everyone think of the blaze's new jerseys?? less colour etc but look great.